


Disco Stick (of DEATH)

by tsukinofaerii



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshee cockblock, Everyone Is Alive, Fuck You Jeff Davis, Gen, Supernatural Crossover, but mostly not in this fic, mcu crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the things no one warned Lydia about when she started tapping into her banshee powers was how often she'd have to save people from themselves. Most notably, people like Tony Stark, who is supposedly her boss in her new internship at Stark Industries. She doesn't know what he's doing, but whatever it is, it's pure death, and it keeps coming for him. If she weren't such a good person, she'd just let him die. She totally blames Scott for that.</p><p>Sam's sometimes had a rough road, but when he and Dean get signed on by Tony Stark to check out a little werewolf problem in New York, it's a stroke of luck. Not only is Tony willing to pay them for it, but he's also hot, rich and very obviously interested in Sam. What could possibly go wrong?</p><p>(Or, the one where Lydia's banshee powers constantly cockblock Sam's death dick.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disco Stick (of DEATH)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clex_monkie89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clex_monkie89/gifts).



> So basically, this was a birthday prompt by Clex_Monkie89 that I honestly think she designed to try and break me. Her request was (AND I QUOTE HER QUOTE FROM ANOTHER CONVO): "SPN/TW/Avengers, because Sam is a redheaded woman and Tony has pattern."
> 
> WHICH IS NOT HELPFUL AS A PROMPT. But I tried, and here it is. This fic is utterly ridiculous, but JOKE'S ON YOU CLEX, IT ONLY TOOK ME FIVE MONTHS. SUCK MY LOLLIPOP.

"And this is Research and Development, where you'll be doing most of your work." Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries and one of the most powerful women in America, guided Lydia through the maze that was SI's R&D department. People looked up curiously as they passed, clearing a path for Ms. Potts without her even needing to give them an arch of her perfect eyebrow. "Don't worry if you get a little lost. Everyone does at first." 

It was everything Lydia could do to keep her head as she followed behind, clutching her company handbook to her stomach and trying to remember to breathe. Anywhere else, it would have been weird for the CEO to be showing her around, but apparently there had been Incidents. Nothing fatal, but enough of them that she'd had to sign a liability waver a hundred pages deep and surprisingly specific. She didn't mind. She'd survived werewolves, kanima, nogitsune, a host of questionable boyfriends, Allison, Allison's resurrection, and the on-going disaster that was the McCall-Argent-Yukimura threesome. Stark Industries would be a piece of gluten-free cake. 

"Your duties will be primarily to see to the needs of our head of R&D, Mr. Stark." Ms. Potts glanced back at her as they passed through a massive set of glass doors, smiling gently. "We understand that you're here to learn, but there's always some grunt work. You understand." 

Lydia pasted on the best, non-vacuous smile she had in her arsenal and nodded, standing straighter in her $900 heels. "Absolutely, ma'am. I'm here to work _and_ learn."

Ms. Potts pursed her lips, eyes scanning down Lydia like she was expecting her to explode at any second. When whatever the worst was didn't happen, Ms. Potts nodded and turned to lead the way to a smaller set of doors in the back. "Tony's is this way. You'll be given security clearance as soon as your bio-scans are processed." 

The doors slid open, revealing a disaster area beyond. Lydia froze. It looked like nothing so much as the time they'd accidentally blown up the workshop at school that one time. Things ticked and rocked and steamed. Trash was everywhere. Very, very expensive trash, judging by the Stark Industries logo on most of it. A little robot arm on wheels whirled in the corner, sorting a bunch of parts. 

Hurriedly, Lydia stepped in, letting the door swish shut behind her. 

"Tony, your new intern is here! The _fourth_ one this semester." Ms. Potts navigated her way through a minefield of scorch marks, rolls of copper wire that could have doubled as a trestle table—had, by the things scattered across some of them—and piles of abandoned projects. "Jarvis, where's Tony?"

Overhead, a crisp British man replied, "Mr. Stark is under his—"

Something thumped loudly, knocking into the sorting robot. "What, hey, no need to tattle!" someone sniped. A few seconds later, a man rolled into sight from behind what Lydia thought was probably a desk. Maybe. It had a flat surface, at least, somewhere under the mess. He sat up with his legs flopped open and a silly, wide smile on his face. "Hey, Pep, how's it going?" 

Ms. Potts rolled her eyes, but leaned down to drop a kiss on his cheek. "This is the new intern from MIT, Lydia Martin. Play nice."

Tony Stark—because it could only be _the_ Tony Stark—gave Lydia a long, lazy look. There was a smear of grease across his cheek, and he looked like he'd gone straight from bed to shop and back to bed and been dragged back into the workshop on a sheet. In short, nothing like the man in bespoke suits she was used to seeing on television. "Am I seeing things?" he asked, hoisting himself to his feet with the edge of the probably-desk. "Or are we collecting gingers?" 

Lydia's shoulders came back. "I'm strawberry blond, actually," she said through a clenched-teeth smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark." 

"No it's not. No _you're_ not. And please, call me Tony. Everyone else does." He wandered around the edge of his work area, bending over to dig through a pile of paperwork, some of which was actually starting to yellow it was so old. "Intern, intern, intern— here we go! Everything you need to know that the redhead brigade can't tell you." With a flourish more worthy of a magician than a superhero-tech-genius, Mr. Stark whipped around and presented Lydia with a sheet of blue paper, hand-scribbled and wrinkled. There was a smear of blood on the corner. 

She stared at it in mild horror. 

" _Tony_ ," Ms. Potts hissed, snatching the paper away before Lydia had to decide whether or not to make with the feminine fainting. "Biohazard!" 

"Come on, Pep, it's Steve's. He's physically incapable of being a biohazard," Mr. Stark whined. Apparently having his toys snatched away was nothing new, though, because he didn't try and get it back. "At least photocopy it for her." 

"I... would appreciate that, please," Lydia pushed out, forcing herself to stop swaying. _Ritual sacrifice. Zombies. Peter Hale._ She could take a little blood. Just preferably not in a professional setting. There had to be standards somewhere, or what was the point? She might as well go back to MIT and be the fourth person this semester to clock out on _the_ most sought-after internship around, and that was _not_ an option. She had nearly broken herself in two to nail down a chance at interning at Stark Industries, even after the first three defaults. It meant a constant weekly commute between Boston and New York, asking Derek to be allowed to stay with him three days of the week, leaving Stiles alone in Boston and hoping he wouldn't get eaten by something and make Scott cry again. She had slaved and begged and used _public transportation_ to get this opportunity. 

Lydia was _not_ going to be intimidated by someone like Tony Stark. 

Gritting her teeth, she took a breath, softened her smile and managed a sweet, "How would you like me to start?"

Mr. Stark blinked at her, leaning in like he night have been nearsighted. Chin up, she held her ground, staring back. After a long, thoughtful moment, he nodded and pulled back. "I like you. You can start by getting this mess cleaned up." A quick snap of the fingers brought the little sorting robot over with a long beep that ended on a rising inflection. "DUM-E will help. If you have questions, Jarvis has answers. I've got a thing."

And with a wave, he started to walk off. Ms. Potts gave her an apologetic look and ran after, catching to him in a few long strides. "Tony, don't you think sorting your work room is a little advanced for a new intern—"

"Nope. Now come on, we've got to talk to Steve about the reporters he's been harassing. Making Fox News cry twice in one week is a little extreme, don't you—" The door slid closed, blocking the sound of their voices more thoroughly than the werewolf-proof walls of Derek's house. 

Clutching her entrance packet, Lydia took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. Ms. Potts had just spoken, so there must be microphones... "Mr. Jarvis?" 

"At your service, Ms. Martin," the same smooth, collected British voice from before answered. He sounded strangely like Paul Bettany. 

At least she wasn't totally alone, though. "Is there a usual order Mr. Stark keeps his workroom in?"

"I'm afraid the phrase _natural disaster_ has been used by more than one interior decorator."

Lydia looked around the disaster that was hers to command and grimaced. "I thought you'd say that. Well." Balancing carefully, she took off one shoe, then the other. High heels would do her no good here. "Let's get started, then."

* * *

The trouble with cleaning and organizing Mr. Stark's workroom was that it was a job that didn't stay done. 

On the first day, Lydia put her back into it and managed to clean away at least twenty five percent of the clutter. It was easy to see which projects were actually in-progress and which had been abandoned. Once she'd had those separated, boxed and put up in a shelving unit "borrowed" from the warehouse it was just a matter of clearing the chaos of spare parts caused by an inventive mind. 

At least, that was what she'd thought.

Day two she showed up in a pair of jeans, a blouse that was nearing the end of its life and flats, because if there was one thing high school had taught Lydia it was that fashion mistakes could literally be murder. When she saw what had become of her work, though, she desperately wanted her spiked pumps back so she could jam them into someone's leg. 

Every single Work In Progress box had been dragged out and opened, the contents laid out on the floor like the worst sort of children's play room. More over, the shelves had been dismantled and were in the process of becoming a new compressor unit for something big. Even a few of the Abandoned projects had been pulled out, though no actual work had been done on them. Instead, they'd been visibly pillaged for parts. Others had just been dumped for no obvious reason.

Making a face, Lydia stared at the mess, pushed up her tasteful three-quarters sleeves and went to work. She managed nearly a third of the job before state laws regulating internship hours forced her to clock out. Even then, she was incredibly tempted to continue working for free out of pure, stubborn determination. But her hands were sore, her knees hurt, and she had a cobweb in her hair. Lydia was many things, but self-destructive was one of them only sometimes. 

She went home to Derek's apartment.

Day three, Friday, was the same, but with the addition of a freezer labeled, inexplicably, _Jolly Green Samples: Do Not Anger_. That she refused to touch based on common sense and self-preservation. With DUM-E's help, she found some caution tape and warded it off, along with leaving a strong note at the desk for Mr. Stark. From what she'd found so far, it wasn't very likely that anything would be done about the samples, but she'd done her best. 

Friday was also when she realized that there had to be a better way. She organized with less fervor, only tidying enough replicate the results of prior attempts, rather than trying to get ahead of herself. Then she got on the train back to Boston and went home to a nice, long weekend with a list of items, a printout of the workshop's dimensions, and a plan. 

Stiles, who she was rooming with while they both attended college in the same area, avoided her for the entire weekend. The one time he approached, it was to ask her to cackle a little quieter, she was frightening the neighbors.

Monday and Tuesday classes passed in a blur. All of her teachers knew she had the Stark Internship, and most of them were quietly waiting for her to run screaming into the night, end up in the hospital with chemical burns, or—as had happened to the very first Stark Intern three years ago—vanish and reappear in Latveria with a terrible dye job and a brand new identity. She mostly was treated like a cross between a superhero and someone with a terminal illness, but Lydia wasn't above taking advantage of that to shift her focus just a little.

She had a job to do, and damn if she wasn't going to do it _properly_. School work had to be secondary _some_ time. 

When her Wednesday shift came around, Lydia timed her schedule carefully, sat in a corner to watch Stark work and take notes. She marked down the paths he took, the patterns and workspaces he preferred, the way and reason so many things were abandoned where they fell. By the time he left for a meeting, she'd drawn up ten pages of notes and three sketches of ideas. No problem was impossible, as long as some thought was put into it. 

"Mr. Jarvis, does Mr. Stark inventory his projects?" Lydia peered down at the latest mess of abandoned parts. She was, slowly, getting used to the idea that Mr. Jarvis was, in fact, JARVIS and not a human being sitting at a desk somewhere. It still didn't feel right calling him by just a name. Not in a professional setting. 

"Not as such, no, Ms. Martin," the AI answered after what she assumed was a moment of searching his memory banks. "His work is rather off the cuff, and he has never required an inventory."

Humming, Lydia spread out a group of randomly sized bolts. The _little_ things were the worst. They took forever to straighten out, but they got mixed up too easily. She thought back to the way Stark ended up going through three boxes just to find one part. "Would it be against your programming if I asked you to keep a _precise_ inventory of all items in this room, including the parts currently in use?"

"Not at all, Ms. Martin." 

"Wonderful." Lydia rubbed her temple absently, feeling a stress headache starting to bloom. "How quickly can you do it?"

"It is already done." 

"Mr. Jarvis, I think you and I will—"

_—Scruff's a good look for you—_

The headache bloomed full into life. Lydia staggered and grabbed for the edge of the work table. DUM-E beeped worriedly at her, and overhead she could heard Mr. Jarvis saying something about her biorhythms.

"I'm fine," she swore, raising her hand to fend off the robot. DUM-E grabbed her braid and gave it a shake, like it wanted to tug but knew better. "No, really, I'm fine, it's just—"

_—but we have an understanding—_

"Just a headache," she finished, dropping her head forward and taking a slow inhale. The familiar, heavy weight of something bad coming pushed down on her shoulders, stole her breath with the weight on her chest. As long as she focused on breathing, she could keep upright, but part of her wanted to slide down against a wall, to count the last beats of a distant heart. There was no tickle in her throat, though. No urge to scream yet. It felt more like the nogitsune. Inevitable death, rather than imminent. 

But Stark had been _fine_ ten minutes ago. And she never got hit with the feeling this quickly. It built up, became an ache before it became a migraine. None of it made any sense. 

"I think I need to go to the lady's room." Carefully, she untangled DUM-E's grip from her hair and made her way to the door.

"Ms. Martin, there is a medical officer on floor—"

"I get headaches all the time, Mr. Jarvis." The metal of the door was nice and cool under Lydia's hand. She let herself press her forehead against it to chase some of the tension away. Buttons clicked on a keyboard in her head, voices murmuring, a press of skin. A heartbeat. "I just need a moment." 

Without waiting for an answer, Lydia shoved open the door and stumbled out into the hall. The bathroom was only a short distance, but it felt like forever. As soon as she reached it, she made sure it was empty before locking the door and slumping back against it. _Things_ moved in the mirror. Bodies. A flicker of sheets. Stark's face, bloodless and slack. The flash of something sharp—a claw, maybe a knife. The click of a helmet. Possibilities, probabilities, ticking away under her skin. 

It hadn't happened yet. It hadn't happened, it _wouldn't_ happen. 

Fumbling in her purse, Lydia pulled out an Altoids tin, flicking it open with her thumb. In it were three clearly labeled types of wolfsbane and, most importantly, a lighter. Weaving in her flats, she dragged her way into one of the stalls, pulling loose a wad of tissue and twisting it up. 

_—a 98.76% likelihood—_

The lighter clicked. Once. Twice. On the third try it caught, flame leaping to life. The tissue flared with an acrid, bitter smoke. Lydia held it as long as she could, letting the heat scorched her fingertips before dropping it into the toilet. 

She was just reaching for more when the fire alarm blared to life. Immediately, the pressure in her head vanished. Lydia breathed out a shaky sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. "Please don't fire me for this." 

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. Still feeling weirdly woozy, Lydia flicked the lock and yanked the door open to find a worried-looking DUM-E waiting, clicking its claw at her. 

"Come on." Grabbing its arm, she pulled it toward the emergency exit. "I hope you can manage stairs."

* * *

The New York offices of Stark Industries were nothing like the LA headquarters, or the Miami subsidiary. In both places the person manning the doors had been in board shorts. People in no-nonsense ten-thousand dollar clothes walked no-nonsense ten-thousand dollars walks through the waiting room without even a glance at the two frayed suits in the corner. 

Sam straightened his cuffs nervously and tried to look like he belonged. It was his best suit which, all said, still wasn't as nice as the one the guy behind the security desk was wearing. Maybe he'd beat out the janitor. _Maybe_. His suit had been in a bag in the back seat for two years, and had survived three ghosts and a Tikbalang, and the wear showed at the edges.

It was uncomfortably weird, when he thought how close he'd come to being one of the people pointedly not noticing them. 

"Stop fidgeting." Dean nudged Sam's knee with his, taking a sip of his complimentary-no-really coffee. Without even so much as a change in expression, Dean went from looking at Sam to eyeballing a brunette woman reading a palm computer who looked like she could chop him up for breakfast. "Your boyfriend ain't going anywhere."

All that accomplished was to switch Sam's nerves from his cuffs to glaring at his brother. "It's not like that."

"Booty call?" The man behind the security desk was starting to look more and more interested, and the brunette was looking Dean's way now. "Lover? One-night stand?" 

"We haven't—" 

"There's my favorite jolly giant!" Tony swept into the lobby, trailed by a harassed-looking Pepper. Before Sam could have so much as a micro-thought of standing, Tony threw himself down into Sam's lap and plopped his feet up on Dean's knee. "Scruff's a good look for you. I like," he beamed, flicking Sam's facial hair. 

"You wouldn't if you had to share a hotel shower with him. He sheds." Dean jiggled his leg, making Tony's feet bounce. "Still wearing heels, I see." 

"They're for my back," Tony said primly. Noticeably, he didn't move, because nothing moved Tony Stark when he didn't want to be. If anything, he stretched out, making himself more comfortable on Sam's lap. "If I'd known you were our exterminators, I'd have just called you myself and saved her some trouble." 

Pepper rolled her eyes. "You're incapable of saving me trouble." 

"I could have _tried_."

The Winchesters exchanged a look. No one was close enough to them to be obviously listening, but Sam would have said that before the security guard had obviously overheard them. "Maybe we should go to your office." He dropped his hands on Tony's thighs, then his knees, then gave up and just folded them behind his head. "It's not really something to discuss in a public lobby."

"What? Here? Public? Nah," With a sweeping, grand gesture, Tony indicated the vast stretch of the waiting room. "This is Maria Stark's Home for Wayward SHIELD Agents. No one gets in here without having the highest security clearance on the planet, or working for SHIELD." 

Dean's eyebrows lifted, glancing over at Sam like Sam had any better answers than he did. "I heard that SHIELD disbanded. Something about a little Nazi problem?"

"Did you?" With a bright, innocent smile, Tony swung himself off Sam's lap. "My office has the files anyway. Come on, before Agent Hill gets a crush on one of you." 

"I know where you sleep, Stark," the brunette Dean had been eying called over, smiling sweetly over the top of her palm unit. "And I'm friends with your fiancé." 

"Ooh, sca—" 

Sam slapped his hand over Tony's mouth a split second before Pepper got there. Together, they shoved him through the main doors and down the hall. Dean trailed behind, probably to give Agent Hill a wink and an excuse to kill him. For once, Tony was docile, allowing himself to be bullied up the shining glass-and-metal staircase and through the doors marked with an etched gold arc reactor, because that was the epitome of tasteful subtlety. 

As soon as they were securely behind a set of closed doors, Sam let Tony pull away and slink behind his desk, muttering like an offended cat. His fingers slid across the desktop, which lit up in an alphabet Sam just assumed was a real one, because actually asking might get him an answer. 

Pepper gave them a wave from where she'd stopped by the door. "I have another meeting in fifteen, so I'll leave you to it. Remember to use a condom." Tony grunted, which was enough answer for her. She smiled and then vanished out the door with a click of heels on tile. 

"So, um..." Something scratchy clogged Sam's throat. He blamed it on the smirk Dean was shooting his way. The _totally unwarranted_ smirk. "You and her...?"

"Engaged, but we have an understanding. Ahah, here it is." A sweep of the hand, and Tony dragged something up into the air. It expanded out into a holographic screen showing a bench, a lamp post and some trees in the early evening dimness. It was grainy, messy footage, the kind that showed up on security cameras where detail had been sacrificed for the sake of the budget. "I monitor all the CCTV systems in the city I can get my hands on. Seems safest, with how many times New York's been hit lately. This came up about three weeks ago. Watch." 

Sam and Dean leaned forward over the desk as the holograph scrolled through a few minutes, marked by the time stamp in the corner. A dark-haired woman and man strolled into the area, walking in the stiff casual-not-casual way of people who weren't used to hiding in plain sight. The woman glanced around, eventually looking straight at the camera. The man turned, and a flare of light cut across his face. 

"That!" Tony slapped the pause button. "You see that?"

Dean did not look impressed. "Lens flare that'd make J.J. Abrams cry into his million dollar hooker? Yeah, I do. But what's it got to do with us?" 

But Sam was shifting forward against the table, looking closer at the inexplicable glare. "That's not lens flare. That's _tapetum lucidum_ , isn't it?"

One of Dean's fingers poked right through the hologram, making the already-blurred image fuzz around his finger. "Tapetum lucidum usually isn't that strong though. It's usually just like a little glow. That's a freaking flashlight." After a second or two of Sam and Tony both staring, he looked up and said, "What? I watch Discovery Channel." 

"Actually, you're both right." Nudging in next to Sam, Tony leaned so that his leg fit squarely between Sam's thighs, innocently using his knee against the desk to counterbalance. He framed a square of the holograph and dragged it out. The man's face was nearly entirely hidden by the glow, but zoomed in it was obvious that the light was definitely originating from his eyes. "This particular pattern had a 98.76% likelihood of being _tapetum lucidum_ , but this level of reflection is specific to _homolupus sapiens_." 

"Werewolves," Sam deadpanned. If he leaned back, his ass would brush against Tony's stomach, and there was no way that was an accident. "You think this is werewolves."

A quick and dirty grin flashed over Tony's face. "Back in 2010 we had a—"

The lights flickered, and his voice was suddenly drowned out by the screech of a fire alarm. Immediately, the hologram fizzled out, replaced with a blue-lit road. A calm voice came through the speakers, asking everyone to _please exit the building in an orderly fashion_ and assuring them that _the authorities have been contacted_. 

Tony groaned. "And that's your cue," he grumbled, patting Sam's ass as he turned them around and pushed them gently out the door. Stark Industries employees were filling the halls. They passed a tiny red haired girl hauling along a robot by its arm, and a pair of obvious SHIELD Agents trying to hide the fact that they were in body armor. None of them actually looked worried, as if random fire alarms were just part of life at Stark Industries. "If I remember correctly, you two don't exactly get along with law enforcement. Let's not play jail house roulette."

"We'll check out Central Park," Sam promised, twisting around to walk backwards. "And... I'll call you?" 

It might have been a pathetic, hopeful voice, but Tony's answering smile was downright dirty. "You do that. Maybe next time you can leave your brother at home, huh?" 

Snorting, Dean stepped between them to point Sam toward the stairs. "Yeah, yeah, point taken. Come on, Casanova, I'd like to avoid being arrested today, thanks."

* * *

It was one of those bright, early fall days when summer was only a couple of degrees away. The air was thick with the mixed scent of the city and the mulch the park's gardeners were using to prep the beds for winter. 

And also complaints.

"Werewolves in Central Park." Dean snorted and kicked at a yellowing clump of grass. "That sounds like a bad show on MTV."

Sam rolled his eyes and crouched down to examine some claw marks at the base of a tree. "Our _life_ is a bad TV show, and you're just now complaining?" 

"Seriously, why are we here?" The toe of Dean's shiny black loafer turned over a drift of fallen leaves and then staring at it like it had answers. A tiny late-blooming purple flower was growing under it, spreading along the ground like a refugee from better maintained beds. "So you can get some rich boy tail? Bang him and let's go."

"Pepper wouldn't have called us if Tony didn't need help," Sam reminded him as patiently as he could stand. He'd had to hear the whole speech, twice, on the ride over. Once more and he'd have it memorized for life, the way he could still recite the periodic tables in his sleep. 

"You think freaking Iron Man needs us?" The pile of leaves turned over again. Then Dean kicked, sending then flying every which way. "He's _Iron Man_. Probably he could get together Captain America and the Hulk and take care of it." 

_Ten... nine... eight..._ Closing his eyes, Sam counted backward before standing and putting his hands on his hips. "Yes, Dean, and then he'd have to explain to a lot of very nice people with badges and guns why he _flattened Central Park_ because there _might_ be werewolves."

They squared off, glaring at each other, shoulders set. Dean's jaw worked, visibly chewing on his words before he finally threw his hands up in the air and snapped, "Just fuck him already!"

"Dean—"

"Parking, Sammy. _Parking_. In New York. My baby's going to have to go in storage." The soft, leaf-green of Dean's eyes caught the sun just so, exactly as they started filling with tears. "Do you know what they do to cars in storage, Sam?" 

It was so much bullshit that Sam almost laughed. 

"Three hots and a cot. It'll be fine." Shaking his head, Sam threw his arm over Dean's shoulder to drag him down to the tree he'd been examining. A perfect circle of churned dirt around the tree formed a fresh flowerbed, which wasn't anything surprising really, but the claw marks in the bark definitely didn't belong. "Look at this. Wanna bet that if we came back with some shovels later, we'd find someone's clothing stash?"

"So is this what Feds do on their lunch break? My tax dollars at work. Not impressed." 

Years of long practice kept Sam from jerking upright like a kid caught stuffing candy in his pockets. Dean had less dignity. He flailed to his feet, whipping around so fast that his tie smacked Sam in the face. 

The girl who'd interrupted them was some scrawny, hipster brunette with big eyes and bigger sunglasses atop her head, messenger bag so loaded that it was visibly straining at the strap. Her cup of iced coffee was one of the trenta sizes, and could probably caffeinate a whole class of undergrads. "Well?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"We're conducting an important investigation," Sam explained in his most level _do not bullshit me_ voice. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave." 

She was not bullshitted. "Yeah, well, I'm going to have to ask you to close off the area if you want me to leave," the girl shot back. "I'm waiting for my friends to get off work, and they'll be looking for me here, not anywhere else." Leaning back against a tree, she squirmed to settle in a bit, crossing her legs at the ankle. 

Dean bristled, shoulders going up an chest going out in a way that always kind of reminded Sam of a cat puffing itself up to look bigger. "Look kid—"

Sam slapped a hand out to catch Dean in the chest before he could finish stepping forward. "How did you know we're Feds?"

Her eyes skimmed down them, then back up. "You're both carrying guns, and you're not dressed well enough to be mob." Smirking enough to show dimples, she took a sip of her monster coffee. "Any other dumb questions, gentlemen?" 

"Allison!" Another even scrawnier brunette, this one Asian, lumbered up at a gasping jog. She staggered to a stop and braced on her knees, swaying when her messenger bag swung off her back. "Malia— and— Derek—" The weight of her bag finally tipped her over until her forehead planted square in the first girl's stomach and stayed there. " _Doughnut eating contest_." 

Her reward was a trenta to the back of the neck. She sighed and leaned even more forward, mumbling something under her breath. The first girl—presumably Allison—patted her hair.

"Great, your friend is here, you can go now." Waving his arm theatrically, Dean gestured at the path back toward the main park routes. "Enjoy your afternoon."

"I said _friends_ ," Allison reminded them, but she patted the other girl's shoulder. "Come on, maybe we can catch Lydia before she leaves work. Leave Derek and Malia to their stomach aches. They're big kids, they'll recover." 

Her friend let herself be straightened up and led off. Dean had just turned his best self-congratulatory smile on Sam when Allison twisted on her heel and said, "Oh yeah, can I see your badges please?" 

Dean's smile fell like a tree in the woods. "What?"

"Miss, is that really necessary?" Sam tried. "We haven't even cordoned off the area yet." 

Allison snapped her fingers and held out her hand. "Your badges. So I can file a complaint about your conduct."

They glanced at each other, but reached for their wallets. Complying was the easiest way to stay low-key, even if Sam was starting to feel a little hunted. She took them both, eyebrows going up. Before they could stop her, she was snapping quick pictures on her phone and handing them back with a smug little smile. 

"What, are you some sort of Occupy protester or something?" Dean grumbled, shoving his back in his jacket.

"Or something," she said, a shade too brightly, hooking her arm through her friend's. "Come on, Kira. Agents Stills and Nash have work to do terrorizing the squirrels." 

"Better than terrorizing a drum circle!" 

Sighing, Sam draped his arm over Dean's shoulder, tugging him back toward the clawed-up tree and its secrets. "Let it go. We have work to do."

* * *

Lydia trotted down the sidewalk, clutching her bag and weaving through pedestrians like she was making a tapestry. New York was noisy, vibrant, constantly on the move, and Lydia was surprised to find that she actually hated it. Beacon Hills was the middle of nowhere, where a thousand horror movies came to life, but at least she could walk down the street without having to watch out for other people's feet. She didn't know how the werewolves managed it. The sensory overload was hell on her, it must have been a thousand times worse for them. 

Halfway to her usual pickup point at Central Park, she spotted Allison and Kira. It was odd enough that she planted herself in front of them in the middle of the sidewalk—much to the annoyance of the people behind her—and crossed her arms. "What's happened?"

"Nothing!" Kira blurted out before the question had even finished being asked. "Nothing's wrong. Nothing at all. Why would you think anything's wrong?" 

Arching an eyebrow, Lydia turned to Allison, who wasn't actually much better at lying than Kira was. She might not have had the same terrible lack of a poker face, but Allison had _tells_. 

"She's right, it was nothing," Allison insisted, tugging awkwardly at one of her curls. Her weight shifted from foot to foot, ball to heel to ball again, so subtle that someone who hadn't spent the last few years running with and away from monsters might have missed it. "You know, it's New York. Weirdos all over, right?"

Silently, Lydia crossed her arms, turned back to Kira and waited. People streamed around them, grumbling, but Lydia had been practicing her I'm A Banshee Who Will Know When You Die So Back Off aura, and it kept the worst of them from jostling her while she stared expectantly. "Well?"

Kira did everything she could to resist. She vibrated in place for a solid minute, then looked to Allison for help. Allison made a face and shook her head, as if Lydia couldn't see her. Inevitably, Kira broke.

"There were some guys with fake badges poking around the Park." Allison hissed at her to stop, but Kira had already picked up the ball and was running, eyes big and dark and shiny with the strain of lying for a whole few minutes. "We just didn't want to worry you! You've got the whole commuter thing going, and it's not like they _need_ to run around and Scott would just get upset if you call and we know you're going to call and—" She took a giant, gulping breath and then settled into a puppy stare that had broken hearts stronger than Lydia's. "And it's nothing."

Closing her eyes, Lydia rubbed her face, massaging away wrinkle-forming tension. She was probably getting workshop dirt all over, but she'd actually progressed to the point where she barely even cared. Her purse was heavy with an illicit flash drive containing Mr. Jarvis' inventory, every little bump of it against her hip a reminder that she was probably working against a thousand different confidentiality agreements, even if Mr. Jarvis had promised it was fine. All she wanted was to get back to Derek's, lock herself in her room, and wrestle her notes into a plan of action. 

Of course, werewolves would always complicate everything. The last thing she needed after the day she'd had was trying to deal _this_. 

Once she'd gotten herself back under control, Lydia lowered her hands and asked, "Does Derek know?" They shook their heads. Making a disgusted noise, she looped her arms through theirs and started tugging them along. "Okay, first, we're finding Derek and telling him. Then all full moon plans are canceled. He and Malia can play Monopoly or something instead. Nice and safe and indoors. And _then_ we'll decide whether to call Scott." 

"The last time they played Monopoly, it was in Beacon Hills. Erica won everything and Malia broke the table," Allison put in, squeezing close so they didn't block too much of the sidewalk. "She put the shoe on a string and wears it around her neck now. I think she thinks she killed it."

"If anyone could kill capitalism, it would be her," Lydia murmured, twisting aside so they dodged a pole rather than had to let go of each other. 

Of the three of them, Kira was the only one who tried to keep up with the rest of the pedestrians. She started to tug ahead a few times, completely unconsciously. As long as Lydia kept a tight grip, though, she always ended up falling back again. 

They passed Central Park with no sign of the fake Feds that had Kira so ruffled, which Lydia was incredibly grateful for. From there, Kira took over navigator, guiding them to a little hole in the wall shop that seemed held together entirely with peeling linoleum and suspiciously duct tape-esque wall paper. Tucked into a corner booth, Malia and Derek were putting werewolf stomachs to use on a large box of powdered doughnuts. They stared at each other over the table, never breaking eye contact as they went through doughnut after doughnut. A small crowd had gathered around them, some of them placing bets. 

"I think it's a dominance thing," Allison whispered, leaning in so close that her lips left a sticky trail of gloss on Lydia's cheek. "They've been weird about it lately."

Anyone who didn't know better would think Derek had the edge. Malia had never grown much taller than she'd been at sixteen, and Derek was six feet of solid muscle. But Malia had learned to be a survival eater during her days as a coyote. There were days when they still had to watch her to make sure she wouldn't eat everything in sight on the unconscious instinct to prepare for a lean winter. Between that and werewolf metabolisms, there was no end in sight. 

That was absolutely unacceptable. She had _things to do_. 

Loudly, Lydia cleared her throat, tapping one shoe pointedly on the linoleum. Immediately, both werewolf and -coyote stopped chewing and looked up guiltily, faces smeared with sugar. Derek's beard looked like he'd aged human thirty years, and Malia had it on the tip of her nose. 

"Are you two going to hike your legs on the hydrant outside next?" Lydia asked sweetly. "Because I think the proprietor might not care for that."

Derek at least had the grace to look sheepish, but Malia's eyes narrowed. She pointedly shoved one last bite of doughnut in her mouth and chewed with long, slow strokes. When she swallowed, the lump moving down her throat was actually visible. Then she bared her teeth. The effect was mitigated by the sugar still on her cheeks. 

Without breaking eye contact, Lydia reached over and folded up the box over the remaining doughnuts. She handed it over to Kira, who immediately opened it back up and took one. Their audience started to disperse with grumbled complaints of cheating. 

"We thought you'd go for a walk in the park," Derek said as he grabbed up a napkin dispenser and put it to good use. "It's a nice day." He offered Malia a napkin, but she was busy sucking the sugar from her fingers.

Allison made an unhappy noise and glanced around to make sure they weren't being listened to. "There's people pretending to be Feds poking around Central Park. I thought it was better to get back home." 

Malia's eyebrows arched in question. Her ring finger popped out of her mouth with a wet sound. " _Pretending_?" 

"Yup." With a dramatic little flop, Kira dropped down onto the edge of the booth next to Malia, still eating her purloined doughnut. Powdered sugar was everywhere. "Allison says the IDs were totally fake."

"And do we really want to wait around to find out who they really are?" Lydia asked pointedly, tapping the doughnut box. 

"No. We don't." Derek finished scrubbing his face with napkins and dropped the wadded clumps onto the center of the table. "I'll get our things from the vault. You four go home. Someone call Scott." 

Allison, Kira and Malia whined in chorus, turning stricken expressions on Derek. 

"He'll just worry," Allison protested, hugging her bag to her hips protectively. "You know he didn't even like breaking up the pack in the first place."

"And it's not like he can come out here and help," Kira added in. She actually had tears in her eyes, and her lower lip was trembling in all its powdered sugar glory. "He already missed too much class because of this stuff. You don't want him to flunk out, right?" 

For her part, Malia just stared at Derek. There was a curl to her lip that suggested mauling was definitely in the order of possibilities. 

Lydia just shrugged. "I'm telling Stiles. He whines if he thinks I'm keeping secrets." Which, in her opinion, was entirely hypocritical. But it was also entirely annoying, and she didn't have the patience to deal with Stiles _and_ her internship. She was only mostly human, after all. "He won't want to worry Scott either." 

And, because Derek had a soft spot wider than the Mariana Trench was deep, he looked between the four of them and then caved almost immediately. "Alright, fine," he grumbled, rubbing a hand down his face. "If we're not telling Scott, then what _are_ we doing?"

"I and my friends here," Lydia patted the box of doughnuts, "are going home to finish a paper I have due in two weeks. The rest of you should probably come along." She flashed a sunny smile. "I hear there's monsters wandering around New York."

* * *

After the excitement of fake FBI agents, the rest of Lydia's life became a seemingly endless gauntlet of saving Stark from himself. 

It happened once, sometimes twice a day. A headache would hit, and Lydia would find herself scrambling to find some way to distract the so-called-superhero from whatever he was doing that was so dangerous. The fire alarm trick only worked twice—the third time, Stark ignored it, and she'd had to trick DUM-E into bothering him. After that, she tried everything short of actually throwing things at him. Every day she went to bed exhausted and convinced that _next_ time she would just let him die, and every day she did it again.

Scott was obviously having a bad influence on her. 

In between Banshee Duties, Lydia put her back into her work, creating lists and check sheets and even writing a quick program to help Mr. Jarvis keep a running inventory of the workshop, though computer science was _so far_ from her actual major. She'd had to call Danny for help back home. _Danny_. And he'd _laughed_ at her. That was her dedication. By the time she filled in her time sheet on Friday afternoon, she was confident that she had done everything in her power short of strapping Stark to a table to create and maintain an orderly workroom. 

Strapping Stark to a table was, of course, her backup plan. She caught the late train back to Boston content, and more than ready for a relaxing weekend. 

Not that being in Boston saved her. At three in the morning on Saturday she was yanked out of a lovely dream of inevitable eventual world domination by a splitting headache. She took a vindictive pleasure in calling up Allison to have the wolves start up a midnight howl near the Stark building. If she couldn't sleep, neither would anyone else. 

Her proof of concept came with her return to New York Wednesday, when she walked in and the workshop was still collected. Not pristine—there was no such thing as a working shop that was pristine—but functionally tidy. Several of the drawers she'd carefully inventoried and filled with current projects had been left cracked open, clearly used as they'd been intended, and there were new projects spread out in collected disasters on the table. The labeling system and inventory she'd devised had been updated less than an hour earlier, suggesting that it was being kept up on by the automated processes she'd put in place. 

As a final check, she had Mr. Jarvis pull up security footage and reviewed several hours of Stark at work. He wandered around and tinkered, absently putting down parts when he was done with them. Those landing spots were eighty-nine percent places she'd anticipated and prepared receptacles for. Then she fast forwarded, and watched as the robots went through their new Tidy and Inventory Protocol, upping the success rate to ninety-six percent. There was obviously room for improvement, but Lydia hadn't applied for the Stark Internship in order to perfect Stark's housecleaning habits. Stark could damn well deal with the four percent failure rate himself, and she would be putting as much distance between herself and his death-prone shenanigans as possible. 

So, with all of that before her, Lydia collected her evidence, straightened her hair, and got on the elevator to Ms. Pott's office. 

It was as pristine as the workshop prior to Lydia's assignment had been a disaster. Perfect chrome and glass everywhere, marble floors without a hint of a scuff. Surprisingly, there were two staffed receptionist desks. She hesitated, eying them warily, before picking the one closest to the office door. There was no name tag, or any indication of what the receptionist's position was other than the placement of her desk, but something about it tickled Lydia's memory. It would have to do.

The woman behind the desk looked up with a smile so professional it had effectively erased all traces of personality. She had her bright red hair pulled back into a loose bun and an absolutely perfect manicure, without a hint of chipping or cracking. "Can I help you?" 

A sudden feeling of inadequacy that washed over her, making Lydia curled her fingers in against her palm. Two weeks of trying to clean up after Stark had come close to ruining them. "I'm interning from MIT, and I just finished my assignment. Ms. Potts told me to come see her when I was done." She tried to look tiny and hopeless, but competent. It was a delicate balance. 

Perfect lips pursed thoughtfully. Slowly, the receptionist nodded. "Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark are in a meeting at the moment, but I'll inform them that you're here. Please have a seat." She inclined her head toward a sofa, the loose strands at the front falling forward to frame her face, and suddenly Lydia's memories clicked into place. 

_Natasha Romanoff_. The Black Widow. She'd been all over the news a few years ago, after SHIELD had collapsed. There'd been press conferences, interviews, speculation, everything. 

Ms. Potts had an internationally famous spy working as her receptionist. _Of course she did._

A hysterical giggle bubbled up in Lydia's throat. She hastily swallowed it down, hurrying over to the sofa to sit as far away as she could. Her skin crawled, though Romanoff wasn't looking at her and wasn't even visibly armed. By all appearances she was just a secretary. 

That didn't really help. 

Logically, SHIELD had been the world's largest intelligence network. They _had_ to know about people like her. Werewolves were the least subtle creatures in existence; drama was in their bones. Boyd had developed a knack for finding the most dramatic lighting in any given room, and Liam strutted. Even wendigo managed to stay under the radar more, and they ate people. When Lydia had decided to go for the Stark internship, she'd known that she was putting herself in the vicinity of people who were better positioned than most to realize something was odd about her. It had been a calculated risk. What she hadn't realized was that one of those people would be specifically trained in finding out people's secrets. 

The prospect of quitting had just become incredibly tempting.

There wasn't a ticking clock to pass the time, and all of the magazines on offer were boring—Stark on the cover of Rolling Stone, the Times covering Captain America, Cosmo's feature on superhero dating. She used up at least an hour flipping through them for lack of anything better, pretending interest in fashion advice that was three whole months out of date. Bit by bit, her nerves wound up, doom twanging in her veins.

"Ms. Martin?" 

The magazine flipped out of her hands. Squeaking, Lydia grabbed it up, smiling too brightly at the killer with the perfect nails. "Yes?"

Romanoff's mouth twitched, but she didn't laugh, which was pretty kind for an assassin in Lydia's experience. One hand held a headset to her ear, the little light flashing a cheery blue. "A friend of yours is downstairs. He says his name is Stiles? Ms. Potts will probably be a few more minutes, if you want to go see him."

Relief zipped through her chest. The air became a little thinner, a little sweeter. _Anything_ to get her out of there without being too obvious. "Yes! Thank you! I'll just—go see why he's here And then I'll be back. Right back." With a wave that, honestly, was completely high school, Lydia scurried for the elevator and tried not to look too eager for the doors to close. 

On the main floor Stiles was standing right in the center of the room, which gleamed with glass and marble in the sunlight that poured in from the windows. His hair was a mess of last night's gel, his shirt had a hole, and even his sneakers—the most reliable thing about his fashion usually—were old. He was a crumbled burger wrapper on a massive diamond. She didn't even care. 

"Stiles!" Lydia threw herself at him, wrapping him up in a hug tight enough that he squeaked. "You're here!"

He froze solid, hands in the air. Gingerly they settled on her back with limp pats. "Yeah, I had a day off and got bored, wanted to see if you were free for lunch. Are you okay? Did someone die or something?"

It was the state of their lives that the question was only half-joking. "Peachy," Lydia answered, pulling back to smile that bright, beauty queen smile that she'd gotten so good at in high school. "Everything's absolutely _peachy_." 

The code yellow word sent his eyebrows up. "Huh. Is that a yes for lunch then? We can talk about your _peachy_ day."

She considered it for a second. Going out to lunch would at least get her away from Romanoff, and allow her a chance to figure out her next move. On the other hand, Romanoff would get suspicious if she just skipped out after waiting that long. But her skin was crawling, and a headache loomed just out of reach. Not the same sort of _Stark is in trouble_ headache, but a mild, itchy thing that meant _something_ was wrong. 

Before she could make up her mind, the elevator dinged behind her. Sweet almonds and sulfur hung on the back of her tongue. Time slowed. 

Two men in terrible suits walked past, heads up, not looking anywhere but the door. Light bent around them, an indefinable flicker of red and black, a shadow where there was nothing to cast one. They stepped into the revolving door. One of the shadows turned to look at her. Smiled. Electricity crackled. The revolving doors spun and spun and spun—

"Lydia?" 

The world poured back into place, water filling a glass. She jerked, giving herself a shake. The men were gone, but she could still feel them, feel the terrible things that followed them.

A hint of feral gold sparked in Stiles' eyes when she looked at him, just a little bit of the same shadow. "Those two peachy too?" he asked, jerking his head toward the door. 

She nodded, schooled her expression into careful blankness. Her neck ached to crane it, to try and catch a glimpse of the men through the massive glass windows. "Very. Look, I have to—" 

"I get it." Stiles squeezed her shoulder. "Give me a call when you're free for lunch, all right? I'll just run a few errands while I'm here, maybe sabotage Derek's Farmville score." 

_Follow the thing that set you off._ It got a little easier to smile, hearing that. She pecked a kiss to his cheek before pulling away toward the elevators. "Don't go too far. I won't be long." _Be careful._

Stiles slashed his fingers over his chest in an X. "Cross my heart, hope to cry."

* * *

"Are we being followed by a hipster? Damn, they're worse than cockroaches in this city." 

Sam tilted his head toward Dean's, using a shop window as a rear view mirror. The angle was terrible, but there was a grungy mess of a kid following in their wake. He didn't walk like a New Yorker, but he wasn't a tourist either. It was all stops and starts, browsing from window to window too fast to actually be looking at anything. And he was familiar, in that way that people had when you'd noticed them passing by. "Looks like it. Doesn't look dangerous." 

"Remember all that howling Saturday?" Dean raised his eyebrows. "They don't have to look scary to be scary." 

He couldn't exactly argue that point. The werewolves, if that was what they were, hadn't killed anyone yet. Tony and Sam tended to agree that as long as no one was dying, things should probably stay that way. But in Sam's experience, people not dying around werewolves didn't last long. 

On the other hand, the longer they took, the more time he got to spend with Tony. That was a powerful motivator when there hadn't been any bloodshed yet.

The crowd on the sidewalk edged them closer to the inside, and the little bit of view Sam had was gone. He dodged around a badly placed bench, bumping up against his brother's shoulder. "I think I know what to do. But you're not going to like it." He caught Dean's eye and then said, "Parking garage." 

Dean's protest was both immediate and whiny. "Awh, come on, Sam, we finally got her in a good spot. She's out of the sun, happy. Safe on two sides. Don't do this to her."

Rolling his eyes, Sam grabbed Dean's eyebrow and dragged him down a side street. The parking garage they'd found to store the Impala in was nearby; it had taken three days to find a decent place where they could park and leave it without having to worry about thieves. What there wasn't were cameras. They'd had the FBI on their tails too often to want to leave that much evidence around, even if the rest of the city was unavoidable.

Moving with the ease of a lifetime of practice, they split up as soon as they turned the corner into the garage. Sam hid behind a pillar while Dean ducked out of sight behind a Prius. Then, there was just waiting. 

It took a surprisingly short time for the guy to show up, signaled by a sudden tap of rubber-soled footsteps echoing in the wide space. Usually when they were followed, the tail had the sense not to be too obvious about it. Either the guy was confident that he'd be able to get out of any trouble, or he just didn't expect to get into trouble. 

The guy passed his pillar without a flinch, looking around, but only ahead. Sam sprang into action, wrapping one arm around the guy's waist and slapping his his hand over his mouth and nose. Dean moved just a second later, grabbing up the guy's flailing feet before they could do any damage to Sam's shins. Together they picked him up, hustling him into the stairs and out of sight of anyone who might be walking by.

Sam had managed to trap one of the guy's arms against his ribs, but the other was free to fight back. Strong fingers dug into pressure points, clawed at his wrists, nails digging in. His head slammed back, cracking Sam in the nose. Pain flared all the way up into his eyebrows and blood poured out, staining the back of the guy's shirt and neck. Sam leaned his head back kept his hand in place while the guy's thrashing got weaker and weaker until, finally, he passed out from oxygen dep. 

Hastily, Sam let go of the guy's mouth and checked to make sure he started breathing again. Blocking someone's airways as a method was effective, but tricky. It didn't take much getting it wrong to do actual brain damage. 

Luckily, the guy—kid, really, he was barely managing stubble—didn't seem to be having any problems. Breathing picked right back up and his pulse, while elevated, seemed steady. With Dean at the feet, they carted him up to the third level, where the Impala and all her tools were waiting. By the time they got there, he was already starting to come around, but a roll of duct tape solves any potential escape issues, and a pack of tissues solved Sam's nose, though his suit was completely ruined. 

Then there was just the search. 

They found the usual loot: MP3 player, phone, tablet computer, lighter, a handful of cash. The keyring had actual bone-shaped dog tags with no name, just an address for somewhere in California and a rough triskele inside a pair of circles scratched on the back. Gold was in the wallet, starting with what had to be a fake ID, unless people were into naming their children by letting a cat walk on the keyboard. In addition to that, someone had sliced open the lining on the wallet. Inside were three differently labeled baggies of dried aconite flowers. 

Dean spread their findings out on the dash while behind them kid started to yell under his blanket. "Wolf wouldn't carry wolfsbane, would it? Three types, too. That's pretty hard core." He jolted as the back of his seat got a hard kick. "Hey, knock it off back there!" 

The answer, while thoroughly muffled by a mouthful of handkerchief and a barrier of duct tape, was definitely a solid _fuck you_. 

"Neither do most people, though." The car rocked as the kid kept trying to escape. Sam caught the lighter before it could roll off the dash. "He's in it somehow." 

"In it deep enough to know who to follow." Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring hard at the aconite. The little purple flowers seemed to glitter, like they knew they were more than they seemed. "I think we're going to have ask some questions."

In the backseat, the noise stopped. 

Sam's eyebrows popped up. He glanced over at Dean, then behind at the now-still lump under the blanket, and back at his brother. He opened his mouth to reassure the kid—they weren't _monsters_ , they weren't going to torture someone when there was no reason, but Dean shook his head.

"Let him think about it. Maybe we'll get some answers the easy way." Starting the car, Dean ran through his usual checks on the dash indicators before putting it in reverse and backing out an inch at a time. "Let's get him to somewhere private. Then we'll see where this goes."

* * *

Stiles wasn't answering his phone. 

Lydia sat in a corner couch of the incredibly lush break room, lips pursed as she stared down at her phone. She knew that Stiles set his phone on silent as a habit, but it had been two hours since he'd left. He could barely go two hours without checking his phone when his life depended on it. That had already been tested once, when their lives had actually depended on it and he'd been a twitchy mess desperate for twitter by the time it was all over. He should have seen her missed calls and texts by now. 

Glancing up at the clock to judge the amount of break she had left, Lydia punched in her final threat. 5 minutes before I call Scott and your dad with an 11-99 so help me God.

Two minutes later, her phone vibrated, Stiles face popping up on the screen. She swiped it open and was yelling before she'd even gotten it up to her ear. "Where are you? You were supposed to have lunch with me you inconsiderate bastard!" 

"Sorry, your buddy Dyzek here's going to have to take a rain check."

A shot of icy terror ran down through Lydia's gut at the unfamiliar, male voice. It was deep, and just a little sleazy, like Jackson had been when he wanted something. It made her hate him just that little bit extra, enough to give her voice an edge that cut through the fear. "Don't you _dare_ say he's a little tied up. That's not funny in the movies, either."

"You didn't even ask who I am? Not your first rodeo, is it, Sweetheart?"

Lydia gritted her teeth and breathed out slowly. There were no voices, no headache, no tickle in her throat. Stiles wasn't going to die soon, at least. She had time to work with. As long as she made good use of it, everything would be fine. "Not exactly. You could say that it's a hazard of the company I keep."

"Maybe you should keep different company."

"Maybe certain people should stop harassing us for no reason." The clock ticked forward—she was a minute late getting off her break. Not that it mattered. The rest of the day was a lost cause anyway. "Look, I don't have time for witty banter, I'm on my coffee break. Just tell me what you want."

There was a moment of unexpected silence. A tick, a click. Someone on a keyboard. She really hoped they were trying to trace the call. Danny rigged their GPS regularly to be unreliable without the right equation, and her number was registered to California. 

Sixty-three seconds later, the silence broke. "Funny story. There's a werewolf pack running around New York. We want a meeting with the alpha. Today, at six o'clock. We'll text you the address from this number." 

She rolled her eyes. Of course they did. Because no one had any imagination. "He's not even in New York. I'll need at least twenty four hours to fly him in. Next request?"

"That wasn't a request." The acoustics of the man's voice changed, gained an echo. "We are going to meet with the alpha, today, or we'll start carving chunks out of your friend."

"I just _told you_ , he's not in New York," she repeated as slowly and professionally as she could. _Breathe in, breathe out. No voices, no screams, keep it together._ That wasn't that soothing, though. Surviving didn't mean surviving intact. Lydia had learned that lesson the hard way. "It's physically impossible for you to meet with him today, unless you're willing to settle for Skype."

 _Squeak grind_. Wheels on concrete. More keyboard taps. A quiet curse. A muffled noise that was probably Stiles trying to be a smart ass through whatever they were using as a gag. "Don't bullshit me. I know how packs work, and I know he won't be far."

"Then you don't know as much as you think you do," Lydia snapped, patience fraying under the weight of panic. "I can arrange for a meeting with his third, with him on the phone. That's the best you're going to get." 

There was a pause for conversation, muffled by someone's palm on the receiver. Then a scrape and, "What about his second?" 

Lydia closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, letting frustration and anger push back the shaking in her hands. "You _have_ his second," she said slowly, enunciating the way she had to for DUM-E. They were dumb. They were idiots. Stiles would be _fine_ , she just had to keep calm and use small words. "Which, by the by, he's going to be _very_ upset about. I would start running if I were you."

This time the pause was thick with surprise. "No way is this guy his second. He's human. Probably."

It took everything she had not to throw her phone across the room. "I already told you that you don't know as much about us as you think you do."

"How do we—"

"Look, I gave you our best offer. Six o'clock, text me the address. We'll be there." Lydia took a deep breath, centering herself. "And if you've so much as _bruised_ him, I will personally track you down and bury you so deep you won't even hear me scream. You'll wish the alpha had gotten you first." Before they could reply, she hung up, punching the _end call_ icon so hard her nail bent painfully. Then she collapsed forward and put her forehead against her knees. Breathing in that position was hard, but that meant screaming would be too. She didn't dare start that. Once she started, she was terrified that she wouldn't be able to stop until it was a banshee wail. 

There were only five hours, and there was so much to do. She needed to text Derek—not call, Derek didn't pick up calls. And Malia, she'd want to know Stiles was in danger too, if she hadn't already picked something up. Malia was more perceptive than Lydia on some days. Allison probably had some hunter connections they could tap for information. Scott... _Fuck_ , Scott. Airplane ticket first, then call Scott, or he'd try to run all the way to New York. 

A familiar British voice cleared his throat somewhere overhead. "Ms. Martin?"

 _Speaking of things to do..._ "Hello, Mr. Jarvis. I suppose you heard all of that."

"My audio receptors are very sensitive," Mr. Jarvis replied, with just a hint of apology in his electronic voice. "Would you like me to summon the authorities? I assure you that it can be done with the utmost of discretion and consideration for any... unique abilities which may be in play." 

"No, that won't be necessary." An idea tickled around in the back of her head. Using just her arms, Lydia pushed herself up to something that wasn't unfortunately close to the fetal position. "But there might be something you can do. If I give you a phone number and a decryption formula, would you be able to locate a modified GPS signal from a cell phone?" 

Mr. Jarvis didn't reply immediately. She wondered if, somewhere, there was a database of regulations that he had to read through, or if he were advanced enough to make use of personal judgment. He behaved as if it were the latter, but computers mimicked human intelligence better than they replicated it. 

After a long, long moment of computing, Mr. Jarvis replied, "Is this related to your incendiary habits in the lady's room?" in what she would have referred to as an undertone in a human-shaped person. 

Lydia flushed. "You know about that?" 

"It is a somewhat telling coincidence that the smoke alarm in a women's lavatory has been repeatedly triggered shortly following your entry into it."

 _And I haven't been fired?_ But there wasn't time for that. If she were going to be fired for being a pyromaniac, it would have to be _after_ Stiles was safe and sound back in Boston. "It's tangentially related. Will you help me?" 

"It would be my pleasure, Ms. Martin." 

For the first time since someone else answered Stiles' phone, Lydia felt like the world wasn't quite ready to crumble at her feet. Her thumb tapped and slid over her phone, bringing up her notes. "Let me get you the number."

* * *

Lydia led her pack down an isolated alley that was much, much too close to the Brooklyn docks than she was comfortable with. Her stomach twisted into knots, and her knees were practically made of cooked noodles. No matter how many times she dealt with life-threatening danger, it never got easier. 

But it was for Stiles. There were a lot of people she'd leave to rot, but he wasn't one of them.

Cars whizzed by, close enough that she could hear them, even if she couldn't see anything. Fading afternoon sunlight was at the wrong angle to be any help at all, leaving the alley in a twilight gloom. At least it was mostly clean, though she never wanted to see a used condom again. 

Cocking her head, she leaned against a metal wall and listened, with physical ears and what she'd started thinking of as Banshee-o-Vision (no thanks to Stiles). She _thought_ she'd heard someone yelling, but it had been gone again before she could be sure. 

"You're sure Stiles is in here?" Derek whispered. He wrinkled his nose, sniffing the air as subtly as any werewolf ever did, which was not. In the dark, his eyes were like two incredibly Not At All Discreet blue LEDs. 

"Supposedly he's close," Lydia answered, tapping the company tablet she'd borrowed from Stark's workroom. It glowed with a map of the local area, her location and the approximate location of the suspect cell phone, which was supposedly fifty feet inside the building. Mr. Jarvis had programmed his tracking software into it and, she suspected, a part of himself too. The program was just a little too helpful to be entirely common. 

Not that it mattered. She was halfway to being fired anyway. And if they got into too much trouble, Mr. Jarvis could alert the authorities, which was almost something like reassuring.

"I can't smell him. It's all cat piss and cars," Malia complained, wrapping her arms around her waist and squeezing. "If he's here, we should save him now, before something happens. If he gets hurt, Scott might not get here in time to bite him."

"We don't want to rush in," Allison reminded her, and Kira nodded. They were huddled together, near the corner closest to traffic, supposedly on lookout. Since katana and crossbows didn't sit well with police even in New York, neither were visibly armed. "That _will_ get him hurt." 

"And he's not going to die?" Kira asked, looking over her shoulder to give Lydia a hopeful look. Of all of them, she was the one most dressed for a rescue mission, in dark jeans and a gray shirt that practically faded into the general grime of the city. "We have time, right?"

"At least two hours of it," Lydia muttered, leaning around a corner. The building had a massive loading dock in the back that was probably their best way in, but it was also the most obvious route. Someone was bound to be watching it, if they had any sense at all. After all, just because she'd only heard two voices didn't mean there was only two of them. 

Derek leaned around her, looking at the loading dock too. "I think we're going to need a distraction." He glanced at her, the movement of his eyes pointed with the way they were lit. "Any ideas?"

She looked over at the loading dock and made a face. There was a stupid, flashy classic car parked there, which was probably ten types of illegal, but no one in sight. Heaving a sigh, she shoved the tablet at Derek. "Wait for my signal." 

Kira tried to grab her shoulder, but she was a second too late. Lydia was already around the corner and edging toward the side door. It was closed tight, which caused a momentary surge of panic so high that the world turned dark for a whole three seconds, but the next one down had been left unlocked. Just in case there was some sort of automatic locking mechanism, she blocked it open with an aluminum can wrapped around the door. 

Then she was in. 

The warehouse was dark, but otherwise disappointingly normal. No trail of discarded evidence, no suspicious lights to point the way. Boxes were piled neatly on palettes stretching up to the ceiling, and the equipment to move those palettes was parked in a marked off zone near the loading dock. The center was taken up by a giant box-shaped room that was disconnected from everything around it. Everything else was a maze made of boxes. Somewhere she could hear Stiles complaining, but the warehouse acoustics made it impossible to be sure where it was coming from.

She hated mazes. They were her least favorite puzzle—illogical messes at best, a waste of time at worst. And that was an opinion she'd had even before the whole minotaur problem in senior year. (Admittedly her own fault. Goddesses of death don't appreciate having their _little pomegranate_ shoot them in the face with a crossbow.) 

Quietly, Lydia toed off her shoes and padded on socked feet around down the nearest aisle she could see. As soon as she was between the walls, every major direction immediately masked by towers of cardboard. With the ceiling shadowed she couldn't even pick out a stain to follow. The maze was mostly linear, but every now and then she ran into a wall that made no sense whatsoever, unless the thing had been designed by Stark for maximum confusion and minimum productivity. Considering the way her life had been lately, she wouldn't have been surprised if that _were_ the case.

Just when she thought she was getting close to the center, there came a familiar, shouted, "DAMN IT." 

Stiles. 

Lydia started running. 

The cursing kept up, switching to ancient Latin, which she regretted ever teaching him. His grammar was _terrible_. What was important was that it was loud enough to override the confusing echo effect of the large, concrete space with high ceilings. Lydia followed Stiles' vulgarities, wincing when they slipped into Spanish, which was somehow even worse than his Latin. 

As she expected, the noise was coming from near the center building. It was a perfect cube made mostly of windows, with two figures inside. Lydia dropped down to her knees, grateful that she'd worn pants that day. Much as she hated them, bare knees on warehouse concrete would have been so much worse. She crawled up to the edge of the building, hugging it close to stay as far out of sight as possible.

Stiles was in the direct line of sight of an open door. Two circles surrounded him—white and black, probably salt and mountain ash. Neither of which affected her, thank goodness, though a werewolf or a kitsune would have had some trouble. Lydia edged as far around the corner as she dared and waved a hand to catch his attention. 

When he saw her, Stiles' string of curses faltered, then picked up again with a vengeance. He twisted to the side a little to peek through the door, then jerked his head to indicate the coast was clear.

Popping up onto her feet, Lydia hurried over. She made sure to drag her toe through the mountain ash as she ran, breaking the line without a pause in her step. Stiles' curses stayed steady as she crouched down to check him. Blood stained the back of his neck and shirt, matted in his hair. She growled under her breath. 

If they hurt Stiles, she wasn't going to bother trying for an escape. Scott would forgive her after the blood was mopped up.

Carefully, Lydia ran her fingers over Stiles' skull, looking for the source of the blood. He jerked away, shaking his head, and she promptly ignored it. There didn't seem to be any bruising, which was either a good sign or a terrible one, she wasn't sure. Frowning, she slid her fingers under the topmost stain. 

_fire_

_pit endless endless darkness burning trapped_

_crawling horror laughter madness_

_blood sweet copper hot boiling on her tongue_

_the end_

_**the end** _

Lydia screamed.

* * *

"You two really suck at this, you know?" 

Sam threw his arm over his eyes. Just under the edge of his elbow, he could see Dean grinding his teeth. The kid wasn't even in the same room, but the warehouse they were using to stash him conducted sound like a high school gym. Bobby's friend hadn't been clear about what it was storing, but whatever it was didn't cut the noise at all. The acoustics were great for singing, terrible for everything else.

"Do you really think you're going to be able to kill Scott? He's an _alpha_. A true alpha!" Something scraped—it sounded like rubber on concrete, maybe some metal. "You're not the first losers to try and come after him and, just between you and me, they were a lot scarier." 

Another scrape mixed in with the blur of words. Sam finally leaned sideways to peer through the door. The kid—Dyzek, if that was even a name—was using his heels to scoot his ass along the floor like a wormy dog. The metal sound was probably the buttons on his jeans dragging against the concrete. It looked like he was trying to get to a box cutter that had fallen off a table, and using his voice to cover the sound. 

He was going to be pissed when he found out the box cutter was empty. 

"You two don't have anything on an alpha pack. Or a nogitsune. Or the freaking _Wild Hunt_. His girlfriend, Allison Argent—you know, of hunter family _the Argents_ —was part of that. Yeah, she died, it was a thing." _Scrape scrape click_. "And his other girlfriend, Kira, she's an actual thunder kitsune." _Scratch jingle scrape_. "And those are just his allies. Imagine how strong _he_ is. Scott's going to eat you for lunch, if you're lucky. No way are you going to kill him."

Dean snapped. "I already told you, we don't want to kill him!" he yelled, twisting to look through the door. "Why did we take off the gag again?"

"Gesture of good faith," Sam reminded him. The constant stream of semi-threats had gone vague and rambly. When he looked, the kid had reached the box cutter and was trying to get turned around to grab it. The concentration that required had ruined his focus for distracting small talk, though he was still making an effort. Sam kind of admired his persistence. Or he would have, if it weren't so annoying. "Also, he kept licking the duct tape loose, and it was too gross to bother to fix. Any word from his pack?"

Grumbling, Dean dug around in his pocket for the phone. It hadn't been a problem getting the screen unlocked—it had the usual swipe, but also a biometric. Getting Dyzek to hold still while they unlocked it with his thumb print had been the hardest part. "Text from the girl. She called the alpha's third and is waiting for the address." 

"We could just do it no," Sam suggested, glancing over toward Dyzek, who was doing little butt-hops to get the box cutter flipped while muttering something about zombie werewolves. "Get it over with before they have a chance to plan anything." 

Being Dean, Sam's brother thought over this very sensible move and went, "Nah. Six o'clock's only in a few hours. How much trouble could they cause?" He jerked his head toward the door. "Look how easy it was to catch this guy, and he's the second in command. What kind of werewolf pack has a human in that position?" 

"DAMN IT." 

Dyzek had found out the box cutter was empty. 

Sam sighed and rubbed his forehead as the cursing continued, passing from English into—surprisingly—what sounded like ancient Latin. He didn't think they taught that sort of thing in public high schools. At least, none of the ones he'd attended had offered it. "I just don't think we should take chances."

Rolling his eyes, Dean stretched over and reached for Sam's jacket, which he skidded across the poured concrete floor rather than throwing. "Dig out your phone and call your boyfriend. You're cranky when you haven't been laid." 

"He's not my boyfriend. I haven't even had sex with him." It was said automatically, but just as automatic was Sam digging through the pockets for his cell phone. 

Not that Sam would ever admit it aloud, but Dean had a point. He probably wasn't going to see Tony again after this—the only reason they'd even bothered sticking around for a job this dull had been for Sam. Also because Tony was paying them in billionaire's pocket change, which was practically a fortune, but mostly for Sam. 

And Dean was thinking the same thing. He didn't say anything, but Sam had developed a younger brother seventh sense of when he was being silently mocked. "Look, I'll find out if he wants to get dinner or something, alright? Stop looking at me like that." 

Of course, Dean looked away, crossed his arms and said, "I didn't say anything." 

"You don't have to. I know you." Since the cursing hadn't stopped, just quieted to a snarl, he opened a text message and tapped out a quick offer. Hopefully they'd have the whole thing done by seven and the night free. Either that, or they'd both spend the night in the hospital being treated for dog attack wounds.

Probably the second one. It usually was.

Tony's reply came fast. That was a thrill, even though Sam knew it was probably the building alerting him to the message. Blocking out the curses, threats and Dean's _look_ , Sam settled in for some quality sexting with a billionaire superhero. 

Which was why he was in no way prepared when the air visibly rippled and a scream slammed into his solar plexus like a wrecking ball. He dropped his phone, rolling onto his knees just in time to retch. It went on and on, past the point where there was nothing left in his stomach to vomit up. His nose throbbed with every heave, a fresh source of pain that just made his throat close up again. It faded away, but the ringing in his ears hung around. 

Dean grabbed the back of his shirt, hauling him to his feet. Vomit was splashed across his legs and blood seeped from one ear. He shoved a gun into Sam's hands, manually curling Sam's fingers around it like they were kids at practice again. Together they staggered out into the rest of the warehouse.

A red-haired woman was huddled behind Dyzek, hands clamped over his ears. She was pale and wild-eyed, gasping for air like she might take another shot at breaking their eardrums. Dyzek was shoving her back with his shoulders, yelling for her to run, but she stayed rooted in place, staring at Sam with an expression of absolute terror. 

"Hey, aren't you one of the chicks from Stark Tower?" Dean said, voice distant behind the bouncing echo still filling Sam's head. "What the _fuck_?"

A long, low howl bounced off the ceiling, rattling Sam's brains again. Another one joined it, higher-pitched and _angry_. He whipped around just in time to be football tackled by a girl half his size with glowing blue eyes. He had just enough time to think _oh shit_ before they crashed into the floor. His trigger finger squeezed on reflex, but if he hit her she didn't let him go. They rolled, her surprisingly human hands yanking at his gun. Sam twisted free in time to see Dean get thrown into one of the towers of boxes by a werewolf that was at least fifty percent muscle.

He shot off a round to buy a second, backing toward Dean to cover him while he pulled himself out of the boxes. The werewolves put themselves between him and the other two, which Sam had to admit was fair. 

A second later, Dean was at his shoulder, gun up and looking only a little worse for wear. "Four against two. I like those odds." 

"Correction. Six against two."

Sam whipped around, squeezing off a shot as soon as he had a target and then ducking under a thrown knife and right into the path of a lightning ball. It slammed into his chest, knocking him on his ass. Electricity crawled over his skin, under it. Oxygen vanished and his muscles seized, vision tunneling to darkness. His jaw locked so that he couldn't even scream. 

The electricity faded, but Sam was still left on the floor, panting for air. He still couldn't move, but it was exhaustion holding him down rather than pain. A hand patted his cheek, just short of a slap.

"Sam? Sammy! What the hell did you do to my brother?" 

"I swear wasn't lethal," a woman said, almost apologetically. "He'll be a little sore for a few days, but that's all!"

Sight faded back in. Dean's face was the first thing that came into focus. Specifically, the underside of his jaw and throat. Sam groaned and reached up, flopping a hand around until he could get a grip on his brother's shoulder and use it to pull himself upright.

"I'm okay— I think I'm okay," he muttered. It was meant to be reassuring, but his tongue wasn't working right yet, and it came out slurred. 

Dean actually snarled. "If Sam's hurt because of you—" 

"Hey!" Dyzek snapped. Someone had clawed through his duct tape, and he was rubbing his wrists where the glue was still sticking. "Us? We're not the bad guys here." 

"We're not the ones who kidnapped someone," the big guy said, crossing his arms over his impressively muscular chest. "And we're not going to kill you."

"I think we should." 

All heads swiveled toward the redhead, who was still wobbling a little, supported between two girls that Sam assumed had to be the late-comers. 

"We should kill them. The blood..." She swayed on her feet, clutching their shoulders like they were the only pieces of solid land in a rough ocean. "Whoever's blood is on Stiles is dangerous. Death follows them. So much death. I..."

"Excuse me?" Dean's voice hit a high, incredulous pitch, not unlike the time Sam had gotten him a salad instead of a burger. Sam felt him reach down to his ankle, where his spare pistol was strapped. "No one's killing anyone. We just wanted to fucking talk!" 

"They're hunters, they came after us," Dyzek said, a hair too eagerly. "I'm with Lydia."

Sam put his hand on Dean's and shook his head. _Not yet_. If there was a chance they could get out without going for the guns, they should take it. The two of them could maybe take all six, but the lightning trick packed a mean blow. He was going to be lucky to walk in the next couple of hours. 

"They hurt Stiles," the girl werewolf shrugged She threw Sam and Dean a hard look, baring her teeth. "Let's kill 'em."

"And there go the two obvious votes," someone muttered—Sam thought it was the girl with knives. "But Lydia's usually not wrong about this sort of thing."

A round of glances passed between the werewolves and whatever the rest of them were. 

"Scott wouldn't like it," the big guy said. Faces fell.

" _Shit_ ," Dyzek muttered. "You're right. No killing, then."

"Maybe we could just make them leave us alone?" the Asian girl asked hopefully. Her fingertips twitched, making lightning crackle between them. "That'd be fair, right?" 

The big guy looked at them, blue eyes flashing. One slow, deliberate step at a time, he walked over and crouched down. "We have your scent," he said, voice deceptively soft, "and we know this city. If either of you sets foot in New York again, we'll know." 

That definitely sounded like a threat. "We didn't come to hunt you," Sam said as loudly as he could. Thankfully, it came out understandable. Using Dean as a crutch, he tried to fumble to his feet. His knees were wobbly, and he couldn't get his thighs to stop trembling. One of Dean's arms wrapped around his waist, which helped him get his legs under him. The big push upward was a fight, but they managed. "We wanted to see if you were a threat."

"Werewolves in the city, you know?" Dean added. His shrug nearly dumped Sam on his ass before he corrected and pulled him back up. "Not many packs can make it somewhere like New York without killing people eventually." 

"Ours can." The big guy stood, and Sam was surprised to see he was couple inches shorter than them. Not that it made him short, but he held himself like someone used to being the biggest person in the room. "You've got two hours to get out of town. We'll be watching."

Because Dean was incapable of not facing any threat with bravado, he puffed out his chest and asked, "And if we don't?"

"Then we'll come after you." It was a simple statement, but the way the guy said it made it an ironclad fact of a threat. 

Sam could feel Dean getting ready to stick his foot in it, so he pulled away until he was standing mostly on his own two feet. "And if we hear that your pack's lost control, we'll be back." 

"Deal." 

There was no shaking on it. They just turned around and walked away, pretending that the slow pace was a decision rather than a necessity to accommodate Sam's shaking legs. Without discussing it, they went straight to the car. Dean tried to take a detour to the trunk, but Sam walked right past him and dropped into the passenger seat. Cursing, Dean followed, sliding into the driver's side. The Impala purred to life.

"Guess you're not going to get that dinner, huh?" Dean asked, checking his mirrors. The Impala jerked to life as he put it in reverse. "Told you that you should have just gone for it." 

Movement flashed in the very edge of the rear view. Sam slumped over enough to see the werewolf girl and the redhead in the entrance of the warehouse, watching them. They weren't moving closer, though, which was good enough. "Tony's rich. We'll get other chances."

* * *

According to Malia, the hunters had collected their things at a five star hotel and driven out of town well within the two hour limit Derek had given them. Scott was called on Skype and reassured that no one was hurt, and then called again on his cell phone to stop him from going straight to the closest airport anyway. Stiles wasn't more than sore, though he was going to have bruises where he'd been tugging on the duct tape. They still spent the rest of the night piled together in his bed, while he protested being babied—but not so strenuously that they might actually leave. Every one of them had been kidnapped one too many times for any of them to be comfortable letting the others out of their sight again right away. 

Which was why when Thursday dawned, Lydia found herself being escorted to Stark Tower by Malia and Derek, while Kira and Allison stood watch over Stiles. They hovered in the lobby like a pair of anxious mama birds, watching while she was duly scanned for weapons, had her biometrics matched to record, and finally swiped her access card. 

"Huh," the security guard said, squinting down at her monitor. "Never seen that before. Your ID's been flagged with a note. Before you get settled, Mr. Stark wants to see you in the top office."

Lydia's heart leaped up into her throat. In the corner of her eye, she saw Derek's head come up and Malia tense, no doubt at the sudden anxiety rolling off her. "Does it say why?" 

"Nope, just to send you up."

She managed to put on a small, confused smile and a wave. "I supposed I'd better get going, then."

As she waited for the elevator to let her out, Lydia went over everything it could be. It wasn't a matter of what she'd done wrong so much as what Stark _knew_ she'd done wrong. Mr. Jarvis hadn't seemed in a hurry to go running off to tattle, but he was still only an AI. If someone with the right authority gave him a direct command, she wasn't sure if he was able to refuse or lie. And then there was the tablet in her bag, a prototype never meant to be taken off company property. Proof of guilt enough, right there under her arm. 

Only one thing was certain: all of her work organizing that ungrateful bastard's workroom had been wasted. The injustice of it made her want to have Derek hit something. 

In her purse, her phone buzzed. A text message from Malia said waiting 4 all clear. She pressed her lips together in a tight smile, staring down at the screen until it blurred. 

The elevator dinged open. Pulling back her shoulders, Lydia lifted her chin and strode out, heels clicking on the marble tile. Even if she was about to be fired and potentially blacklisted from every major tech company in the literal universe and Asgard, she wasn't going to go down cowering. She might not have had much, but Lydia had her pride. 

There was only one staffed desk this time, and it wasn't Romanoff working it, but a dark-haired woman with a touch of the military behind her blue-and-black outfit. The name tag on the desk said, _Hill_. No first name, no title. Just _Hill_. She glanced up, smiled, and said, "Lydia Martin? Mr. Stark said to send you right in."

Lydia flashed her a smile and let herself in through the large doors. The office beyond was technically Ms. Potts', but someone had stuck a yellow post-it note with _& Tony Stark: VP of R &D & R&B_ under her name. Stark himself sat at the big desk wearing an actual waistcoat, a ruby glinting in his tie pin. The matching suit jacket was draped carelessly over the back of a leather sofa, no doubt collecting wrinkles and lint. She tried not to wince at it. 

He smiled and gestured her forward elegantly, indicating the visitor's chairs on the other side of the desk. "Have a seat, Ms. Martin." 

Stiffly, Lydia picked one of the chairs and lowered herself to the very edge. She wasn't sure she trusted his smile. It was the expression of a man who thought he knew a secret, and was enjoying it. 

"Thank you for coming." Stark nodded at her, perfectly, grandly neutral, but he didn't actually look at her. "I have a few things I want to talk to you about. Some questions you might be able to answer. I'm sure you understand, considering... Considering."

Papers shuffled as he pretended to flip through them, no doubt to suggest that they were all about her. It was a silly, childish intimidation tactic that she _knew_ was total bullshit, because she'd seen it used before and she'd hated it then, too. 

Annoyance flared, bright and high and hot. _He_ was the billionaire, the irreplaceable genius, the boss. _She_ was the one who'd spent weeks cleaning up his literal messes and keeping him alive against the forces of his own terrible judgment. "No, I'm afraid I don't," Lydia said, just short of snapping. _What the hell, you're going to be fired anyway,_ someone in her head whispered. It sounded a lot like Malia. _Go for it._ "What questions?" 

Her tone must have surprised him. His head snapped up, eyebrows rising in what had to be mock astonishment. The papers dropped to the desk, fanning out messily. "All right, rough it is. Let's start with misuse of company property. You're aware that Jarvis is company property, aren't you? As are any items he's loaded on, such as that tablet in your purse."

Lydia curled her fingers into a fist. "Mr. Jarvis is, to the best of my knowledge, a fully-functioning artificial intelligence, which makes him an employee rather than an asset. He is a coworker, and I consider him a friend," she answered coolly. A small, ice smile curled her lips. "Any non-company requests he's filled for me are as between _friends_ , and nothing to do with Stark Industries. I would, of course, be happy to bring the matter of Mr. Jarvis' capabilities to court, if necessary."

This time when Stark's eyebrows rose, she had a feeling his surprise was honest. "Straight to a lawsuit, nice. You don't pull your blows, do you?" 

"I've found it's best not to."

"Good." Folding his arms, he leaned forward, voice dropping in confidence. His eyes met hers. "I don't need anyone around here who does." 

The pit of her stomach dropped. So did her jaw. "Excuse me?"

Stark rose to his feet, turning toward the window. She had a feeling he wasn't really talking to her anymore so much as at her, but the words flowed too quickly for her to object, or even take offense. "I still have questions, you know, starting with what you are—I know it's not human, we scan your bios every morning for a reason you know—and going into your connection with, let's see..." He pulled out a list from his pocket. It had been printed, but folded and refolded so many times that the edges were soft. "The werewolves in Central Park; kanimas; a _nematon_ , which I don't even know what it is but sources assured me that I should find out and then avoid the hell out of it; why you have a highly toxic herbal substance in your purse and, most importantly; why you've spent the last two weeks cockblocking me more thoroughly than even Rhodey did when we were at MIT because I'm _really_ dying to know."

Righteous fury simmered and died. Lydia slid back in her chair, numb. The leather seat was cool through the thin fabric of her shirt, something to cling to while she tried to find her mental balance again. "I'm a banshee," she answered, because he'd obviously already gotten enough information that any guess he made on his own could only do more damage. "And I— it's complicated. Some of it's personal, and unlikely to affect my work. Nothing illegal. Your _sources_ will have to tell you about nematons themselves." 

He took the deflection with a nod, which was much more ease than she'd expected. "And the important part?" he pressed. "Because I had a shot at the literal Antichrist, and that shot is now three area codes away and still moving. I'd like to know why."

"I told you. I'm a banshee." Stark just blinked, and Lydia held in a sigh. The _Antichrist_ , of course. Somehow she wasn't surprised that a man who kept his workshop in terrible order thought mostly with his dick. She knew Stiles, after all. "You were going to _die_ ," she explained. "I don't know what you were doing, but it was going to kill you. I try not to let that happen. If you'd like, I can ignore it next time and let you deal with it on your own." 

"No no no, I like living, it's a hobby, thanks." Popping the paper against his palm, Stark started to pace. His poker face was surprisingly good. Lydia couldn't get a read on it. 

She waited him out for as long as she could, through three text messages in her purse that were probably Derek and Malia threatening to storm the office. Finally she collected her purse and stood. "Mr. Stark? Can I go?" 

"What?" He snapped out of his thoughts, staring at her like he was surprised to see her still there. Then he frowned. "Just one more question. Two more. When do you graduate, and what does Pepper have you doing? Course eighteen, theoretical math, right?" 

"Yes, I— May, and data entry for the X-19Z prototype results." She frowned back. "Why?"

"You're reassigned. You're off the data entry and working with me, hands on R&D, which should work out nice since you redesigned my workspace for me." One of his fingers leveled at her. There was grease embedded under the otherwise tidy manicure. "You've got until April to show me what you've got. If you're not a complete fuck up, I'll double whatever your next best offer is."

It took everything Lydia had to keep her knees under her while the rest of the world, including seventy-odd stories of skyscraper, dropped. "But I'm not an engineer?" she squeezed out through a throat that was threatening to close. "I'm— course eighteen! Theoretical math!" 

"We'll see about that. Go on, now. Shoo." Stark flashed her a smile and waved the paper at her until she took the hint and started backing up. "You probably want to spend some time gossiping with Jarvis over coffee or something."

She didn't dare take her eyes off him as she backed up into the suspiciously well-timed elevator. The last time something like this had happened to her, the world had almost ended. Twice. "You won't regret this." 

"Oh, I'm sure I will, but I'm told it's good for me." Right on cue, the elevator doors slid closed while Stark waved. Her reflection in the polished brass doors stared back at her, wide-eyed and shocked. A trauma victim of Hurricane Stark.

In her purse, her phone buzzed again, twice in a row. Blindly, she reached in and pulled it out.

All ok? Malia's first text read, followed by !!! from Derek. Then there was another from Malia, saying, gnna call Scott if u dont txt back.

Finally, two from Scott. The first: lydia IDK wur but mal & der r blowing up my phone & im in class call them. And then less than a minute later, plz.

With shaking fingers, Lydia opened up a mass text to all three of them. All ok. Go home. TTYL.

Just as she hit send, the elevator door dinged open onto R&D. DUM-E was waiting with a cup of coffee still-steaming coffee that she could tell just from looking was exactly how she liked it. The little robot clicked hopefully, a small green LED flashing in its body. Smiling, Lydia took the coffee and patted its head. 

It really was all okay.


End file.
